Over 8.9 million Americans have contracted the Covid-19 virus and over 230,000 Americans have died. The virus is surging across America again with projections that 500,000 Americans overall will die by the end of February, but around 130,000 of those lives could be saved if everybody were to wear masks.

In the past 3 ½ years of the Trump presidency we have been witnessing an ongoing American tragedy with the final act still being written in the months before and beyond the November election.

Many odds makers now consider Bernie Sanders as the favorite Democratic nominee to take on Trump. For many in the progressive media, the self-described socialist and Independent is already the “presumptive nominee” having a solid ground game carried over from the 2016 race and a consistent progressive message that especially appeals to 18-29 demographic.

The Democratic Party strategy for winning the presidency and Congress in 2020 should follow the same formula that won them 40 additional House seats in the 2018 election – make health care the number 1 issue, support broad based likeable candidates, and target independents and moderate Republicans in purple and red states and districts.

The Republican Party has devolved into the Party of Trump, where Trumpism is embodied by a populist and unlikely ragtag alliance of rabid racist nativists, anti-intellectualists, overt flag waving patriots, religious zealots, rich oligarchs and corporatists finding common ground to unabashedly defend everything their feared and heralded leader says and does, facts be damned.

Donald Trump has been a really bad businessman over a span of 48 years, contrary to his self-promoted and populist image of a successful businessman.

“We’re going to win. We’re going to win so much. We’re going to win at trade, we’re going to win at the border. We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning, you’re going to come to me and go ‘Please, please, we can’t win anymore…. And I’m going to say ‘I’m sorry, but we’re going to keep winning, winning, winning, we’re going to make America great again.

The world renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir (MoTab) is under attack by one of their own. Jan Chamberlin, a five-year veteran of the choir has resigned in protest because her church accepted an invitation by Donald Trump for the choir to sing at his inauguration. Participation by choir members is voluntary. Chamberlin could have just opted out, and no one would have noticed.

For those of us who were first introduced to Senator Tim Kaine at the Miami Clinton/Kaine rally at Florida International University expecting a boring “Mike Pence like” white guy speech, we were surprised and blown away. We witnessed an energetic, animated, and smiling Tim Kaine give an inspiring speech captivating all of us with his every word.

Bernie Sanders won the Washington state Democratic caucus by a “yuge” margin of 46 points, his largest margin of victory in his campaign. However, what is less known is that the highly publicized record voter turnout of 244,458 for the caucus was still relatively small compared to the much higher voter turn-outs for primaries and general elections.

“One of the most tragic things that happened yesterday, a beautiful day, was that I was talking to a woman who said that she wouldn't want to be me for anything in the world. She wouldn't want to live today and look ahead to what it is she sees because she's afraid. Fear is always with us but we just don't have time for it. Not now.

Nobody is talking about one crucial aspect of Ted Cruz's eligibility to become President --whether Ted Cruz ever technically became a citizen in the first place, or that he might have obtained his citizenship much later through the naturalization process.

ISIS, the Qur’an and the Bible: Fundamentalists versus Modernists“ISIS is No. 1 enemy of Islam” -- Saudi Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-SheikhAs of this writing every notable Islamic organization in the world has condemned ISIS, not only for the attacks in Paris, but also the ISIS inspired San Bernardino mass killing by husband and wife, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik.

With the steady increase in the Republican support for Ben Carson, especially in Iowa, it is time to take a closer look at what Ben Carson has said that has caused his popularity to rise with Republicans.In Iowa Carson leads Donald Trump by 12 to 14 points in the polls of October 26th.

We go to war because it’s so easy. It’s as simple as that.

"After they drove the car into the ditch, made it as difficult as possible for us to pull it back, now they want the keys back. No! You can't drive. We don't want to have to go back into the ditch. We just got the car out." -- President Obama slamming Republicans on the campaign trail, May 2010.

“We as Americans and as humans have very selective hearing and very selective memory. We only hear what we want to hear and disregard the rest.” – Frank Luntz, Republican strategist...

The question, “Is trade good for America?” may seem a little trite to some, but in watching and listening to the heated rhetoric on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement, it is a question that one might ask to gauge how much the public has become so polarized on this issue.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." --Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943.Sometimes the future is beyond even a CEO’s power of imagination. Sales of personal computers, tablets and smart phones worldwide in the year 2014 topped 2.4 billion, with 88 percent of sales attributable to tablets and smart phones.

"If you want to go face to face with me President Obama, I'm ready to go because I have the facts!" – Ed Schultz responding to President Obama for calling out MSNBC for its opposition to the TPP.

"The first time you shoot someone, you get a little nervous. You think, can I really shoot this guy? Is it really okay? But after you kill your enemy, you see it’s okay. You say, Great. You do it again. And again. You do it so the enemy won’t kill you or your countrymen. You do it until there’s no one left for you to kill. That’s what war is.

Obama said... Obama promised... Obama lied... Obama should have... Blame Obama... If only Obama would... Obama is a wuss... Obama overshot... I'm so disappointed in Obama... Obama is the lesser of two evils...

Josh Ernest has referred to Obama's proposed budget and executive actions for his last two years in office as "Obama's 4th Quarter", sidestepping any suggestion that it's more about setting the agenda for the 2016 election.

"In time we hate that which we often fear." - William Shakespeare, Antony and CleopatraOn this Martin Luther King Day and as President Obama prepares for his seventh State of the Union speech, I ponder our political divide and especially how President Obama over these often tumultuous past years has become the focus of that divide, often rearing its ugly head in hate.

On November 3, 1948, the Chicago Daily Tribune published a banner headline, "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN".The underlying lead paragraph stated: "Dewey and Warren won a sweeping victory in the presidential election yesterday.

In my previous blog article, Campaign Finance Reform going nowhere fast, I covered the wave of spending that followed the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United versus FEC decision.

". . . corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their 'personhood' often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of “We the People” by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.

I believe President Barack Obama should have attended the opening ceremonies of the Sochi Winter Olympics, or at the least sent Joe Biden and Michelle.

The term "inequality" has been in the front of the news lately, not only because President Obama has made it a central part of his second term agenda, but also because many economists and political scientists recognize that for our democracy to survive, the current trends of increasing inequality must be abated.

In the first month of the rollout of Romneycare in 2006, only 123 people signed up out of a population of 6.6 million. After two months only 2,289 had signed up and after eleven months, 36,167.  Nevertheless, despite the low initial enrollments, in the ensuing months and years the rollout proceeded without much media attention...glitches were quietly fixed as they were identified.

Back in 2007 when health care reform was a part of Senator Obama's ambitious presidential campaign rhetoric,  my daughter was struggling to find an individual health insurance policy on the open market in Connecticut . Previously she was covered by her university's health insurance plan as a graduate student.

For six months in 2012 I was a volunteer in Colorado Springs for President Obama's reelection campaign, knocking on hundreds of doors to try engage people in a conversation about issues that mattered the most to them.